Where Will Their Tears Go?
by DigitalFlagDancer
Summary: The time comes when all that remains of the collective human consciousness must ascend beyond its limitations or be destroyed. Can Lain and Alice make connections in time, or will all memory be deleted?


Where Will Their Tears Go?

Grey hands typed away frantically at dusty keys for the first time is many years. The Grey had not had need to connect since he severed one system of connections from another, but his people had discovered his deception and were coming for him now. He knew he only had one chance, and would not be able to forgive himself if things went differently than how he planned. _True_, he thought, _there's only a slim chance, and it will be up to her. But still, it would be my fault if she could not save them…or herself._

**Log In Successful. Please state command. **The computer-like device in front of him said.

"New message," the Grey stated.

**Addressed to who? **the device asked.

"Lain Iwakura," the Grey stated.

_Please save them, Lain, _the Grey thought. _You're the only one who can._

-Terminal transfer.-

**Lain. You have new mail. **the Navi spoke its first words in over a decade.

"Hm?" Lain asked. _That isn't possible, _she thought.

"Who is it from?" she asked.

**Grey. **the Navi answered.

"Recite message," Lain commanded. The Navi did as instructed. "Hm," Lain pondered. "I suppose it was just a matter of time." With that, she evaporated herself back into the system.

-Terminal transfer.-

"Alice," Lain said. A dark brown haired woman in her early thirties turned around, startled by the girl's voice. When Alice saw Lain she couldn't remember who the girl was or how she knew her, but she knew that she had met the girl once, and that she had been of paramount importance. Alice opened her mouth to speak, but closed it when she realized she didn't even know the girl's name anymore.

"Lain," Lain answered the question in Alice's mind. Alice nodded, and walked closer to the girl, who looked to be about fourteen years old. Lain was wearing a school girl outfit just like the one that Alice had worm almost two decades earlier. Could that be where she knew her from?

Lain brought Alice's attention back to more important questions. "You can trust me. You know this," Lain stated simply.

Alice nodded. "What is it that we have to do?"

"We have to transport the greater consciousness to someplace where the Greys will no longer be able to affect it," Lain answered.

"What does that mean?" Alice asked.

"Right now you only exist because your consciousness has been preserved inside their system," Lain answered.

"Whose system?" Alice asked.

"The Greys," Lain answered.

Alice was no closer to understanding what was going on than she was before Lain had answered her.

Lain did not wait for Alice to question her again. "All you need to know is that you are not truly alive as I am. The only thing keeping your conscious from dispersing beyond all hope of greater memory is the fact that your information has been stored inside their system. For a long time they were aware of this storage and they tried to dictate what the greater consciousness was and was not aware of about its own existence. Then they tried to shut it down. They thought Masami Eiri was gone–and they were right–but he was merely a means an end. Nothing more. One of their own moved the system in secret, and has watched over all of us since the server shift. His deceit has been discovered, however, and soon all the different portions of the greater human consciousness will fling apart beyond all range of possible reunion if we don't shift everyone into a greater server."

As cryptic as everything else Lain said was, and as many questions as it raised, Alice found herself focused on the first part of Lain's statement. "I'm…not…truly alive?" Alice asked.

Lain shook her head. "I am the only human left in existence who truly knows what it means to be alive. It is the reason I have always existed beyond your range of memory, beyond your ideas of time. I am the sole figure in this world who is able to change, reset, begin, and end. It is through my memory and my father's transfer of that memory to a hidden system that the biologically immortal data that makes up your conscious is able to exist. You see, while time only cannot destroy you, you can come undone if you cease to have a suitable network to connect to."

"I don't understand," Alice said, shaking her head as it began to throb mercilessly.

Lain put her hand on Alice's shoulder and instantly the pain was gone. "Don't worry," Lain said, "You don't have to."

And with that Alice felt a deep-rotted calm and understanding fill her being as Lain took her hand and they both ascended into the sky above the city. They looked down upon the remembered towers and network of ghosts and Alice asked, "What is it that we have to do?"

"Ascend," Lain said, "Together. Everyone must become aware." With that the concrete below them disappeared, as did all foliage, buildings, cars, and birds. Everything was stripped from view except dirt, people, and telephone poles. "Connect to them. Reach out, now, while there's still time," Lain said. Alice nodded, and did as instructed.

She wasn't sure how she knew how to connect. She had never been taught to do such a thing on a level this deep–but then again, maybe such connections could never be taught.

"Everyone is connected innately in the subconscious. We just have to make those connections known to the conscious," Lain explained. Alice nodded.

The two of them spat out light gray gasses from their fingers and the world around them seemed to gray as the bodies below began to rise up and surround them.

"How do they know to do this?" Alice asked.

"Survival is innate as well," Lain said simply, "Especially when survival isn't to be achieved alone." Bodies rose up into the sky from all directions and the wires connecting the telephone poles below the clustered bodies began to snap, dripping mud down to the ground that disintegrated upon hitting the dirt below. Light began to shine from every person in the sky, beaming out of them and painting the air until they were all floating in a mass of brilliant yellow and crimson.

"It's time to make our final exodus," Lain said inside the minds of the souls assembled around her. "We must connect to ultimate mainframe."

"What memory bank are we connecting to?" Alice asked her old friend, the seemingly godlike, but apparently human, savior of all human thought.

"Each other's," Lain answered.

"But how will that protect us?" Alice asked.

"If something is not remembered, then it never happened," Lain said. Alice tilted her head in confusion.

"It's simple," Lain said. "By bringing the elements and connections of all layers of our consciousness together into one collection, we choose to believe that we can exist by means of belief alone."

"But what does that mean?" Alice asked, still unsure of what to think.

"It means that I exist if you believe I do, Alice," Lain said. "Do you believe I exist?"

"Well of course! But what does that…" Alice was interrupted midsentence.

"And I believe in you, Alice. And right now, scared as we all may be, we believe in each other. That's enough. Do you get it now?" Lain asked.

Something in Alice's soul rested after hearing Lain's words. She may not have understood if she thought on it too deeply, but both her subconscious and conscious believed in what Lain was saying.

"Let's go then," Alice smiled. "Let us believe in ourselves." Lain smiled at Alice's words, and she rose up through the red heavens alongside all remembered remnants of humanity. They breached yellow clouds and entered orange. They reached Infinity at last.

-Terminal transfer.-

The Grey heard footsteps coming down the hall and knew he'd be arrested and inevitably killed in no time at all. Just as he heard the Greys outside begin trying to break down his door, he made one last desperate analysis of the server.

**Server is empty. No data files present. **his monitor said.

_They made it, _he thought and a tear fled his eye. _She did it._

His door broke down, and other Greys surrounded him. His last thought before being knocked out cold was, _You did it, Lain. I'm so proud of you…daughter._


End file.
